Have you ever bypassed the agency?

[bobhope]

Did somebody hijack DA's account?

Doesn't sound like the old DA at all.

[DodgyAgent]

Did somebody hijack DA's account?

Doesn't sound like the old DA at all.

Something went wrong with the operation

[engineer]

We had a chat and decided to deal direct bypassing the dishonest agent.

I have never done this before. Has anyone else? It doesnt feel good, but if I hadnt neither of us would have gotten the contract.

Hm, I really wonder HOW this is possible!

Here in germany, contracts between the consultant and the agency usually contain phrases which prohibit. The will demand some thousands of Euro from you.

The only way is, that the company puts preassure on the agency telling the to never ask for anybody alse anymore in the future or doing it the nice way, by simply getting another one for another project.

[rb621]

So you charged a 9% margin on what the contractor got. Have I read that right? Very reasonable.

Unfortunately I found out that the increase I'd asked for was passed on to the client with a 33% markup. And nothing has been confirmed yet - I am in effect on the client site with no agreed contract in place.

I'm an idiot - but loyal to the client and their customers whose projects and business depend upon me.

I have, but not often. In hindsight and in all cases I will say that I probably deserved it. Usually it was as a result of being lazy and assuming that events would turn out as I assumed that they would.

One example was that a contractor that left a contract rang me up and asked a hypothetical question about going back to a client and using me as the agency and how much would I charge. I said a low amount on the basis that it would be a new client and therefore an opportunity for more business.
what the sneaky little s**t failed to tell me was that he was planning on going back to his/my previous client (three months after leaving) and had schemed with the project manager to both get around the "cup tied" clause and get a stonkingly low margin. These two conniving gits took the view that "I could afford it", which in my view was not the point.

I ended up going above his head and I argued that our contract was not unreasonable and that it was not an issue of money but a matter of honouring a legitimate business arrangement between two companies.
The contractor argued that I had agreed a rate and it should not matter who the client was . I replied why then not mention the client in the first place? I also said to the manager who believed that "I could afford it" that so could his retail organisation afford for shoplifters to nick stuff from their stores so why should I report anyone I saw stealing?

The upshot was that I got my higher margin (9%) because the client valued my services enough to uphold our agreement. On the other hand if my position with this client had not been so strong then they could have given me the flick and I could have done nothing about it. So it was only because of the efforts that I had put in with this client over the years and that I had another 20 contractors on site that gave me any leverage.

Quite often contractors return to places I have placed them and they have gone direct, but usually after 9-12 months. When this happens I contact them and wish them luck and let them buy me a drink, the end result is that whenever they need to hire contractors themselves I usually get first crack.